


Chiaroscuro

by ZoeBug



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Art Student Jean Kirstein, Drawing, Fluff, JeanMarco Gift Exchange, M/M, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 14:13:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17143253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoeBug/pseuds/ZoeBug
Summary: Jean watches this fascinating stranger—Marco, apparently—as he drops his bag into a chair at a free table and wrestles his coat from his broad shoulders.Maybe, Jean decides, coming out to this cafe to draw wouldn’t be such a waste after all.





	Chiaroscuro

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sk_elene](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sk_elene/gifts).



> Happy Holidays to my gift exchange recipient sk_elene! I hope you enjoy this super fluffy college-town coffee shop meet-cute! Awkward artist Jean is very fun to write, especially how flustered he gets. Best to you this season!

**Chiaroscuro**

_n_. the use of dramatically contrasting light and shadow in a piece of artwork 

* * *

 

Slumped in the plush armchair at the back corner of the coffee shop, Jean chews on his lip, twirling his pencil in his hand. His sketchpad is balanced on his drawn-up knees, coffee still untouched on the table in front of him. The shop is cosy—bustling with frantic students tapping away at laptops and people chattering across tables by the frosted-over windows.  

There are no shortage of faces for him to pick from here. And he really should just _pick one_ since he’s been putting of his face study piece for a week now already.

Truthfully, Jean really _likes_ being an art major. Especially since this entire semester he’s gotten to do almost exclusively traditional drawing. He likes working with pencils and sketch pads—the occasional charcoal and pastels.

And he likes drawing people. This assignment should be a breeze.

The thing is, drawing someone is one thing. Drawing a real life stranger in person at the campus coffee shop is entirely another. It’s awkward. And Jean feels a little like a creep, eyeing people’s profiles and ear shapes to see which he’d like to draw.

At least its warm back here by the heating vent. Fall finals season is always heralded by the first few snowstorms sweeping across campus, making it even harder for Jean to justify dragging himself to the last few weeks of classes in the mornings.

Jean taps his pen against the chair’s armrest, muffling the sound of his nervous energy. He really should just pick someone already. That girl right there, maybe, seated diagonally across the shop. Sure. Why not? She’s hunched over her laptop, long hair falling out of its loose bun into her face. She’d do just as well as anyone else, he guesses.

But the minute he’s drawn a curving cross to map out the proportions of his face and is glancing up again, Jean finds her staring sideways at him. Jean swallows and quickly looks away from her, down to the page. He sloppily rips it from his pad, balling up the in frustration and sighing heavily.

This is useless. It’s awkward and it sucks and he hates it.

Honestly at this point, Jean figures he should just write this off as a loss and trek back to his dorm room. Try again another day, maybe, when his nerves aren’t so shot.

Flipping his sketchbook shut, he sets it on the table in front of him and lowers his legs back to the floor, stretching his arms up over his head.

Which is when the door chimes as it swings open, a swirl of cold air and snow surging into the shop on the heels of what looks like a bulky bundle of winter clothes on legs. Whoever this guy is, he looks half frozen, snow clinging wetly to the bottom of his boots. He’s got a scarf pulled up over his nose and the strip of cheekbones exposed between hat and scarf are rosy with the chill. The door swings shut behind him, the guy stomping his feet to shake the slush loose from his boot treads.

Jean watches the guy as he tugs down the scarf from over his mouth to reveal a thick spattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose and his cheeks. He’s panting lightly, probably from the cold and from having booked it through the snow to get someplace out of the wind.

His eyes are chill-brightened, face pink, dark hair sticking wildly out from beneath his hat where it’s been tugged down repeatedly and ruffled up his bangs.  _Cute_.

“Sorry for tracking in all this snow,” Jean hears the guy say, smiling sheepishly at the bespectacled barista at the counter.

The barista returns his smile and waves her hand dismissively.

“It’s that time of year, don’t worry about it. Can I get you anything?”

“Something warm,” the guy replies and laughs. “Might need a second to decide beyond that.”

“No problem, take your time.”

The way a laugh transforms this guy’s face both fascinating and adorable. Jean can’t look away from him. It bunches up his cheeks beneath his eyes, forms dimples in the skin beside the corners of his mouth.

It’s wonderful. Jean’s fingers itch to draw it.

The guy orders his coffee before stripping off his gloves and scarf as he surveys the shop for an empty space to set up.

His eyes briefly meet Jean’s as he does, his lips pulling into a shy sort of smile when they do. Jean feels his face heat.

The guy’s eyes dart away quickly when the barista calls out the name ‘Marco’ and he turns to grab the steaming cup she places on the table.

Jean settles back into his chair and picks his sketchpad up once again, flipping it open.

He watches this fascinating stranger—Marco, apparently—as he drops his bag into a chair at a free table and wrestles his coat from his broad shoulders.

Maybe, Jean decides, coming here to draw today wouldn't be such a waste after all.

 

 

 

Marco lets out a giant sigh of relief when the window to connect to the cafe’s wifi finally pops up. The internet at his own apartment is absolutely dismal and there would've been almost no way he’d be able to finish all of the online quizzes for his biology class at home. The trek through the biting wind and slush had been a bit harrowing, to be honest. But now that he’s set up with functioning internet, a hot latte steaming at his elbow, and a heated building, Marco feels like the trip out here was worth it. 

Not to mention the cute gangly boy he’d caught sight of curled up with a sketchpad in the corner armchair. With his dyed two-tone hair, a handful of piercings glinting in his left ear, and graphite stain smudged along the edge of his palm, this guy has got Marco just short of enamored just on sight.

And it might have been wishful thinking on his part but Marco thought the guy might have blushed a little when he'd caught his eye earlier. Regardless, Marco’s gaydar is going off, so hitting on the dude a smidgen probably won’t hurt. Marco shakes his head and turns back to his homework, taking a gulp of his still slightly too hot latte. It scalds his tongue a bit.

Homework first. Then flirting. Focus, Marco, focus.

Focusing, it turns out, is supremely difficult to do once Marco notices the guy in the corner glancing up from his sketch every so often to look at him. It’s pretty cute actually, how he squints his eyes slightly before hunching back over his paper and scribbling furiously or sweeping his hand across the page in long strokes of his pencil.

The guy is drawing him, Marco realizes. And it’s him blushing this time, taking another drink of his latte. It’s cooled off by this point but Marco barely tastes it, using the cover of the cup' s rim to watch the guy surreptitiously.

Time passes, Marco tries to slog through his biology homework, and the guy’s gaze keeps bouncing up to Marco then back to his drawing. Marco’s gotten about one and a half of his five quizzes done and he’s out of latte. Damn cute boys and the collective havoc they wreak on Marco’s gay little heart (on his aspirations of good grades.)

Finally, Marco sighs, clicking submit on his third quiz, and drains the cold dregs of his cup. The guy in the corner is frowning down at his work. He’s got a bit of graphite smudged across his nose in a dark grey smear. Marco bites his lip, shuts his laptop, and digs an old receipt from his pocket.

 

 

 

 

“Hey, there.”

Jean jumps at the voice, looking up from his work to see the cute freckled boy he’s been so closely studying standing there directly in front of his table.

Jean feels all of the blood drain from his face at the appearance. Oh _god_ , he probably saw Jean drawing him and came over to tell him to stop being a creep. Jean gulps, opening and closing his mouth uselessly a few times without managing to get out an actual full word.

The boy, Marco, just smiles at him.

“Would you mind if I borrowed your pencil for a minute?” Marco bites his lip and Jean is unable to keep his gaze from tracking the movement, distracted from his attempt to to hunch over his drawing and hide it from view. “I know it’s an art pencil so it isn’t for writing. But I’ll be careful. It’s just for a little thing.”

Marco smiles at him again and Jean swallows, nodding a little dumbly.

“I- Uh, sure, I guess.” Jean holds out his pencil, wincing as he notices the shine of graphite splotches on his fingers.

“Thanks,” Marco replies. He puts down what looks to be a receipt face down on the table beside Jean’s untouched coffee before leaning over it, pressing the pencil lightly to the paper. “My name’s Marco, by the way.”

“I- Uh, Jean,” Jean replies, very nearly managing to not instead have said ‘I know.’  "I'm Jean."

Marco’s writing pauses, and he looks up, eyes warm and bright.

“Nice to meet you, Jean. How’s that spelled? So I can get it right.”

“Right?” Jean asks, but Marco just continues looking at him expectantly. “J-E-A-N.”

“Oh, the French way,” Marco says and returns his focus to the paper.

“Yeah.”

After a noment Marco straightens up, carefully handing Jean back his pencil and, along with it, the scrap of paper. Jean stares down at them blankly for a moment without comprehension.

“I like your drawing, by the way,” Marco says, hiking his book bag higher on his shoulder. He nods down to Jean’s lap. His drawing of Marco’s face scrunched in concentration is roughed out there in grayscale, light from his laptop illuminating the curves of his cheekbones and the line of his nose.

Jean scrambles to stick a sheet of parchment paper over the drawing and flip the sketchpad closed, but the parchment keeps folding over itself and sliding off onto the floor.

“O-oh, I- Man, I’m sorry about that, I should have asked before I-”

Jean stops his frantic flailing when he hears Marco laughing. Looking up, Jean finds Marco with one hand covering his mouth, his cheeks bunched up under his eyes in that infinitely endearing way from earlier.

“No, no,” Marco protests, laughter still bubbling through his words, “I think its really cute.”

_Cute?_

“Umm…” Jean starts, feeling a blush burning across his cheeks. Marco drops his hand from his mouth to point at the scrap of paper Jean had abandoned in his scramble to cover his drawing.

“If you want to draw me again,” Marco says, giving Jean a joking sideways grin, “you can always ask. Or we can skip drawing next time and just get the coffee. Your call.”

Jean looks down to the receipt where Marco has delicately but clearly written out a phone number below the words:

 _Jean –_ _Call me sometime_

_♡ Marco_

When Jean looks back up again, Marco gives him a little wink before cracking up. 

“Sorry. The wink was probably a little too much, huh?”

Without meaning to, Jean snorts out an abrupt little guffaw of his own.

“N-no, no,” Jean laughs. “It was cute. Really sealed the deal.”

Marco chuckles, pulling his lips in between his teeth in good-humored embarrassment.

“Glad I could convince you.” Marco flicks a little wave. “Hey, I’ve gotta run. But I hope I'll see you again?”

“Yeah,” Jean replies, nodding and lifting a grey-smudged hand to wave in return. “Me too.”

Marco gives another ridiculous wink as he turns away, snickering as he pulls his scarf back up over his nose and heads toward the cafe door.

Jean can feel his stupidly wide grin still stretched across his face as he watches Marco disappear out into the snow. He leans back into the armchair, the sketchpad on his lap still open to his drawing of Marco, the receipt with Marco’s number on it sitting expectantly on the table beside his long-abandoned coffee.

Yeah. Coming out here today was definitely not a waste of an afternoon at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos always appreciated!  
> You can also come say hi on [tumblr](http://zoe-bug.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/xiexiecaptain)


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